This Boise food pantry is almost empty. Here’s how you can help your neighbors in need

Multiple food pantries across the Treasure Valley are running out of supplies and asking for your help.

The St. Vincent de Paul Southwest Idaho food pantry on 3209 W. Overland Road in Boise is 8% stocked, Development Director Mareesa Rule told the Idaho Statesman. That amounts to four pallets of food. Fifty pallets are needed weekly to meet community demand.

The pantry serves about 900 families a month, Food Pantry Manager Brandon Weast said. In 2023, the average number of households served per month was 694, Rule said.

“We’re feeding more people than we have historically, and we have less food to do it,” Rule said.

On the first Tuesday in June, 80 households sought food from the pantry, including nine first-time families. On the second Tuesday in July, 144 households, including 23 new families, sought food. The average household includes 3.6 people, Rule said.

The pantry hasn’t experienced such high numbers of visitors since early in the pandemic. “All of a sudden, we just skyrocketed,” Weast said.

Pantry cuts amount of food it gives households

The St. Vincent de Paul pantry has lowered the amount of food it is providing, Rule said. “We’re trying to make it go as far as absolutely possible,” Rule said.

With school being out and children not receiving lunches provided by schools, the need for food increases in the summer. “It has been a very large strain on families,” Rule said.

Numerous families who are struggling to make it through the month visit the food pantry, Rule said. The amount of food available and the number of visits fluctuate throughout the year. But the pantry has seen numerous first-time families in need for food.

Those in need are allowed to visit the food pantry once a month to make sure St. Vincent can feed as many people as possible, Weast said.

The last time the pantry had enough food to feed everyone in need was likely in the fall of 2023, Rule said.

The reduction in inventory is due to a lower supply from community partners like The Idaho Foodbank. Other partners supporting the pantry include El-Ada Community Action and local companies such as Gaston’s Bakery and Utz Chips.

Randy Ford, president and CEO of The Idaho Foodbank, told the Statesman that the nonprofit has had to navigate higher costs of purchasing and transporting food.

“This is during a time when we have had a decrease in donations and an increase in need,” Ford said by email. “According to the latest Map the Meal Gap report, 11.4% of Idahoans are food insecure, and unfortunately this data is consistent with the increased levels of need we have been seeing in Idaho. The Idaho Foodbank’s goal is to keep our food distribution levels as high as possible, while managing the increased costs of food and the need for food from our partner food pantries all over the state.”

The Idaho Foodbank provides food at no charge to over 400 rescue missions, church pantries, emergency shelters and community kitchens, according to its website.

The St. Vincent food pantry sometimes receives only a fraction of the orders it places with the partners. Weast said food providers try to maintain “equitable access” to many food pantries.

James Thompson, food program director at El-Ada, said funding gets “really tight” at this time of the year and St. Vincent is only one of the 19 food banks they provide food for.

“We try to combat it the best way we can,” Thompson said. “I wish I could give St. Vincent more food than the food they always ask for. But I got multiple pantries to give food to.”

All pantries throughout the valley are being told the same thing, Rule said.

“The need grows, and we have to figure out how we’re going to feed everybody,” Rule said.

Rule said that Gaston’s Bakery and Utz Chips have been “crucial” for St. Vincent de Paul and “go above and beyond”. “No shortage on their end,” Rule said.

Pantry operates in a food desert

St. Vincent food pantries in Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell and Mountain Home are also struggling.

The St. Vincent pantry in Boise — the largest in the city, according to Executive Director Ralph May — is in desperate need of everything. “Boxes are empty, hoping to be filled,” Rule said.

The area where the pantry is located, between Vista Avenue and Roosevelt Street, is a food desert, an area where people have limited access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Food distributions take place on from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesdays and Fridays. Boise’s pantry has a drive-through model, and people typically start lining up around 8 a.m. for the distribution starting at 10, when volunteers put together food boxes and take them to the vehicles.

The Grocery Alliance Program, which consists of stores like Albertsons and Costco, also supplies the pantry with items that are overstock or being removed from store shelves.

The stores give the pantry a lot of deli, dairy and bakery items that have short shelf lives, Weast said.

The extremely limited amount of nonperishable food provided by partners, accompanied with the increase in need, is a large concern, Rule said.

About 90% of the food provided to the pantry comes from partners, while the remaining 10% comes from community donations, Rule said.

How you can help

People can donate nonperishable items such as rice, pasta, beans, cereal, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, tuna and peanut butter. Donations are accepted from 9 a.m. to noon Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Financial donations will be used to buy food in bulk, pay for rent and utilities for pantry space, and pay transportation costs for food delivery and pick up. You can visit the food pantry’s website for more information on how to do this.

Community members can volunteer their time from 9 a.m. to noon Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to build boxes and sort food or on distribution days to help register visitors.

The St. Vincent pantry receives plenty of hygiene items thanks to a new partnership with Amazon, through which it gets returns or overstocks, Weast said.

What is urgently needed is food. Weast said he hasn’t seen a bulk quantity of peanut butter in the building in over a year. “We used to have pallets and pallets and pallets,” he said.

Rice is also something they used to get in large quantities but is now scarce.

“I’m sure most people in our neighborhood and community know somebody who is benefiting from this food pantry,” Rule said, “Being able to help is something that is at their fingertips.”

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